Create a helper column which calculates the number of characters in each
cell, and then sum those numbers.

Example: Assume you have a column of numbers, A1:A1000. Enter =LEN(A1) in
cell B1 and filling down to B1000 will give you the number of characters in
each cell from A1:A1000. Then =SUM(B1:B1000) gives you your answer.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"archsmooth" wrote:

I am trying to sum the LEN function in columns of data. The data may be well
over 100 cells long. For example, for a column of 4 cells they may contain
45,1,21,25. The answer I want here is 7 (the total number of characters). The
logical formula I would LIKE to use would be SUM(LEN(A1:A4)), but that does
not work since LEN does not like ":". The other way I have tried is to
CONCATENATE the cells, then use LEN. This works if I hold the CONTROL hold
down while selecting each individual cell to get the formula
LEN(CONCATENATE(A1,A2,A3,A4)), and gives me the desired result of 7. Did a
mention my data may be hundreds of cells long? If I hold CONTROL down and
scroll the length of the list, I get LEN(CONCATENATE(A1:A4)), and CONCATENATE
does not like ":" either. Maybe another Data or Statistical formula will
work? HELP!!!